Political expert explains why Zelensky invited head of Phanar to Ukraine

Vladimir Zelensky and Patriarch Bartholomew. Photo: krsk.kp.ru

On November 11, 2020, political scientist Alexei Yakubin explained in an interview with "1Kozak" why President of Ukraine Vladimir Zelensky invited Patriarch Bartholomew of Constantinople to visit our country. 

According to Yakubin, “Zelensky was expected to behave like the president of a secular country in religious matters, to cancel or use the tools that he has to change anti-church laws, to pursue an equidistant policy from key religions, and simply adhere to the norms of justice, legality and constitutionality in this matter."

However, according to the political scientist, “in the end, we saw that at first Zelensky partly adhered to this model, as it seemed, although the anti-church laws were not cancelled, and the Constitutional Court has not yet considered this issue, and now we see that there is an attempt to slightly flirt with the same Epiphany, and with Bartholomew."

Yakubin does not exclude "that in this case there is also an external factor": "Because we remember that, for example, representatives of the American Embassy and American structures were involved in the process and sort of supervised or contributed to the process of creating the OCU".

The political expert is sure that “for Zelensky himself, this is a dangerous trend. He was elected by our citizens, who do not want politicians to meddle in church issues and try to play on church topics".

He recalled that only a part of Petro Poroshenko's voters looked positively at the interference of the authorities in the affairs of the Church, "but according to the results of the elections, we see that for the majority of Ukrainian citizens this is an unacceptable option".

“Therefore, it seems to me that an attempt to play the same game as Poroshenko will end for Zelensky the same way it ended electorally for Poroshenko,” concluded Alexei Yakubin.

As reported earlier, Vladimir Zelensky invited Patriarch Bartholomew to Ukraine.

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